The Unexpected Discovery of My Book

Last weekend I was in Hershey, Pennsylvania at the Hershey Lodge for a conference called Writer to Writer. It was a terrific event which will be repeated in the fall and I met some new writers. Also I got to hang out with a couple of my long-term friends. Jerry B. Jenkins taught the fiction track and Cecil Murphey taught the nonfiction track of the conference. I had the opportunity to speak at a breakfast to the group and also to teach a couple of workshops.

After the conference was completed, the Hershey Lodge was hosting a regional Christian bookseller conference. On Sunday afternoon, I signed over 125 copies of my Billy Graham biography as a way to introduce the book to these retail stores. The experience was a terrific way to help retailers know about the book and its availability. Also it gave me a chance to tell them about the benefits and distinctions of my biography for their customers. My biography is an easy-to-read 172 pages and in a couple of evenings readers can gain an overview of Mr. Graham's life. I included a number of new stories and the book is completely up-to-date.

If you don't know, I worked for Mr. Graham about 20 years ago as the Associate Editor at Decision, the official publication of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I gathered endorsements and a foreword from Luis Palau for my book. You can see these endorsements and a short book trailer on my website. You can order it different ways from my website—even get an autographed copy if you want.

Depending on the time of year, traveling can be challenging. It's exactly what I found on Monday when I traveled home. I was on the early flight from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. I had an hour and a half to change planes but my flight was delayed for over an hour. Supposedly it was because of weather—some other place than Harrisburg where the sun was shining with a blue sky. I missed my connection from Philadelphia to Denver and the next flight was about 6:30 p.m. Yes, I was stuck all day in the Philadelphia airport. 

Since I had a lot of time on my hands, I wandered into Heritage Books. As I looked around, I discovered copies of my Billy Graham biography:

I asked the shopkeeper if I could sign my books. She called her manager to check and the manager said, “Yes.” I pulled out my pen and autographed all of the copies. Throughout November, December and January, my book has been in 25 different airports besides other bookstores across the country. Here's the list:

Travel delays are a nuisance but I made an unexpected discovery of my book in the Philadelphia airport. Fun.